


Echoing, echoing

by library_lungs



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Rey, EP IX Speculation, F/M, Gen, hello children who wants to be Sad, vision!dark rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 22:07:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20433215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/library_lungs/pseuds/library_lungs
Summary: Kylo looks for answers. He doesn't find them.





	Echoing, echoing

He can tell when he reaches the cave.

It would be hard not to. It’s a hole in the ground, kelp erupting from its mouth like the arms of something trying to escape. Beyond the ledge where he stands, the ocean lashes at the rock, sending up icy laces of spray that coat his face and sting against his scar. 

The helmet would keep the rain off, he thinks absently, but the hunk of red-threaded black stays tucked beneath his arm.

Rey didn’t tell him how to find this, that night. She told him everything that happened—the dive, the mirror—but she didn’t give him a map to the cave, which he’d thought might be a problem when his Silencer touched down on an island devoid of any life but some vaguely amphibious sentients that seemed mostly annoyed he was there. Turns out he didn’t need a map, though. Kylo remembers the island like the back of his hand, and even though he’d never been to this cave, wandering over the familiar crags brought him here, strung along like a fishhook was caught in his ribs.

He drops the helmet without ceremony. For a moment, he hopes it might roll over the edge, that the faultlines might crack again. But the helmet stays whole, cushioned by damp greenery. He nudges it with his toe.

Another moment, this one of waiting. Seeing if maybe being here might tangle the Force between them, make it open a window where he could see her, just her, no surroundings. But the ambient noise of squawking porgs and angry waves stays steady, and no slender figures cut the gloom with fiery eyes.

“Fuck,” Kylo curses mildly. Then he steps forward, into open air.

#

The swim is the worst part, and he finds himself wondering how someone who spent their whole life in a desert made it through alive. His cloak swirls around him like a funeral shroud; he tears it off, mouthed curses making bubbles rise from his lips. Kick, pull, avoid the rocks, then something like muted light breaks above him and he breaches the surface, pulling air into labored lungs.

The grotto is plain gray rock, and for a moment he can’t see anything like a mirror, wonders if the whole thing was a vision of Rey’s that he won’t be able to recreate. He curses again—people will be wondering where he is by now, he doesn’t have time to meditate and hope—but then something glimmers, out of the corner of his eye. One of the rock faces is unnaturally smooth, and when he flicks a finger toward it, the movement is reflected.

Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, hesitates. Then he pushes up from the ground and walks forward.

His reflection in the strange not-mirror is hazy, a him-shaped shadow until he’s only inches from it. He remembers Rey’s tale of a hundred hers, reflected forward and back, syncopating rhythm with snapped fingers. But there is only him, here. Alone.

Kylo reaches out his fingers. They touch the stone, slick and wet. “Show me,” he starts, and then he doesn’t know how to finish it. _Show me my parents_, she’d said, but that’s the last thing Kylo wants to see.

So he lets it hang there, unfinished, gape-mouthed and unsure and alone, and _damn_ it feels like this entire island is weighing on his shoulders, pressing him down. 

He’s starting to think it’s pointless, cursing himself for coming, when a figure in the mirror moves.

It’s not him. For half a heartbeat, he thinks it’s Rey—the figure has her same build, all wiry strength and slender shoulders. But then there’s a flash of red…

His hand presses flat to the rock, like his skin is suddenly magnetized. He can’t tell if his eyes are open or closed, but this is certainly a vision, and one he’s had before.

It is Rey. Rey, the bones in her face sharp enough to cut. Rey, hooded. Rey, igniting a red saber and twisting it out to double-blades, her expression lifeless, her eyes dead.

It’s the last two things that are different, that make it clear this image is coming from somewhere other than his own head. When he thought about what might’ve happened if she’d taken his hand, her eyes were full of warmth, and she was smiling.

_What you wanted_, hisses a voice he can’t place, one that comes from outside himself. It makes him feel like a boy again, small and shell-fragile, with something dark whispering in his ear he can’t shake. But it can’t be Snoke, Snoke is dead, he killed him…right? He’d done that? It wasn’t all some fever dream where Rey held his hand and kissed his cheek and told him of course she’d never leave him alone?

He tried to close his eyes, but the version of Rey lifted from his brain and twisted was still there, still as death and just as indifferent. _This is what you wanted._

It is a monumental effort to lift his hand from the mirror, to stumble backwards. It feels like pulling himself from a spider’s web. But he does it, chest heaving, and falls to his knees on the damp rock. They cut through to his knees, opening wounds that itch more than sting, and he doesn’t move.

_This is what you wanted._

And he stares at his empty hands, and permits himself one sob. Just one, deep enough to make his throat feel razored. He’d thought he’d find answers here, but he just felt more alone.

The words jar him, and he looks up, half-expecting to see her now, called through galaxies by a looped loneliness. But there’s nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super quick drabble inspired by the new footage, but I might include some more Ep IX one-shots as we get more info!


End file.
